How do you discipline your children?

Question

What's your secret?

I have never had to lift my hand to spank my kids. I use the patient and understanding approach. I scold when they do bad, and praise them when they do good. We listen when they have something to say. That is important. We also have regular family activities to keep us together as a family unit. And, we have a strong faith. Both of mine are model students and they never give me any grief. My oldest is 16 and she is a sweet child even though there is influence on her to be otherwise.

Answer 1

I knew we had lots in common!
My family sounds like yours!
My oldest is 15 and the sweet one, then we have a 10 and 9 year old.
I try to look at situations they way they would. When one of them is picking on the other, we take away their favorite toy-- with the stipulation that they do not get it back until the picked on sibling agrees that they are being nice again. They are allowed to argue viewpoints, but not hurt, denigrate or insult each other.
We do a ton of family stuff and I even homeschooled them for 3 years. We live about 500 miles away from extended family, so we work at getting our little family to be as strong as it can be.

Answer 2

I have always believed in spanking until recently. My husband and I are in the process of adopting a distant relative who is 3 and has been viciously physically abused. He has scars all over his back from being whipped with belt buckles and he's been burned and beaten so much we would never even think of laying a hand on him. So, we've found other ways to discipline and they've been very effective. We don't do the whole "time out for 30 seconds" thing because I think it's a load of crap. If he misbehaves, he has to sit in the corner or go to his room for 15 minutes. Or, we take away toys. It works very well. If he cries or whines or talks back, we ignore him and say, "I won't listen to you when you talk like that. I can only hear nice voices." We just have to be consistent.

Answer 3

Cheerfully, firmly, fairly, consistently.

When they were little, I used the time-out in a corner technique -- very short periods of time, roughly no more than one minute for each year of age.

My boys are 15, 16 & 17 and they mentioned the other day that they'd never been grounded. Hmmmm!

Bottom Line (this may be my secret -- I'm not sure): My husband and I modeled good behavior so they had a good example to follow. And, I DON'T mean we are perfect! What I do mean is that we speak pleasantly and softly; treat each other, our kids and the world at large respectfully; we tell the truth and are scrupulously honest in all our dealings...you get the idea.

Answer 4

I rely on my wife's moderation. She is very patient. She never hits or gets angry. If she is near getting angry, she just walks away and confront the situation latter. Her theory is that you need to teach children self control, and you cannot teach it if you are out of control. And that violence should not be a first resort. Kids need to learn to resolve conflicts.

First resort, talk. Next, taking away priviledges is the next step. If the child is in a tantrum state, you may need to leave until he/she is back in control. The worse I have seen, is pinning them down until they are calm.

You also discipline them the same way you train animals. You have to be consistent.

Answer 5

the secret to Any discipline is CONSISTENCY, and do not use physical violence

Answer 6

Hit them.

Answer 7

How do you Centurio?

Answer 8

BEAT THE HELL OUT OF THOSE LITTLE KIDS.OR IFTHATDOESNT WORK PUT THERE LITTLE ASSES IN BOOT CAMP...